//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4 - Second-Best 
// Story: Empathy is Magic, Pt. 1 
// by SisterHorseteeth 
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Cadance didn’t get into what their errands actually were until she’d already put two tall cups of coffee into herself – and was working on a third – en route to their unstated destination. The citizens of Canterlot had cleaned up most of the debris left on the streets by the numerous hysterical stampedes that had marked the first day after the Incident, and at this point, most ponies on the street were just trying to pretend things had gone back to normal. The sun did rise that morning; that would just have to be enough.
Sunset… hadn’t been eager to press her on the details. Or say anything at all. Sleep had dulled the desire to cringe into a black hole of mortification, but she still had to grapple with the realization that – perhaps – she did not actually know Mi Amore Cadenza like she thought she did – and that Mi Amore Cadenza now knew Sunset more deeply than she ever wanted to be known.
Talking, she feared, would only make that disparity worse.
But it had to happen eventually.
Cadance sipped loudly from her paper cup. Calm and jitterless as can be, she asked Sunset, “Did Celestia ever tell you anything about the Elements of Harmony?”
“Not a word, but I’ve read about them, on my own time. Why?”
“They play a central role in this project.”
“What, like, as a symbol?”
Cadance blinked a few times, struggling to comprehend. “…Whatever do you mean?”
“Uh, like, a metaphor?”
“…I’m really lost now.” She scratched an itch on her forehead with the tip of her wing. “Um, how about you tell me what you know, and we can work from there.”
Ugh. That was a pretty transparent information-mining strat. Fortunately, it wasn’t mining for personal details, so Sunset had no reason to lie. “They’re a fabled set of six artifacts used by Celestia and sometimes her sister to thwart the various mega-monsters of history. Since they don’t appear outside of ancient legend, it’s pretty safe to assume they’re nothing more than a flourish to make these stories more interesting than just going ‘and then Celestia effortlessly turned the bad guy into stone with her natural alicorn power; the end’.” Sunset hazarded a cocky smirk – a guilty pleasure, but seeing through the bullscat felt so edifying. “That’s why I’m not sure how they’re going to help us. Symbols are great and all, but they need real power behind them.”
It felt good to smirk so freely again, like stretching out her legs after a long ride in a cramped carriage, but for her face. Sunset had learned to stop bothering with her smarty-pants smirks around Celestia, because the Princess always had some nullifying counterargument that made Sunset look like a total idiot, but this was a conversation about magical lore! Sunset’s turf! She could risk–
Cadance snorted, holding in a giggle. “Oh, uh, wow.”
Oh, no. “Wow, what?”, Sunset strained not to hiss. It didn’t work very well.
The alicorn flinched, the mirth draining from her face. “Oh, I’m sorry; I really shouldn’t laugh. It’s just… How do I put this…”
Oh for rutt’s sake. It was happening again! Sunset gambled on being more knowledgeable on magic than Cadance (like she obviously had to be!) and she lost. How?!
Well, Sunset had to play along, like she seemed to always do around Princesses. “I’m listening,” she squeezed out, through teeth just barely hanging onto a forced smile.
Cadance downed the last of her coffee and levitated the empty paper cup into a convenient trash can, which, judging from the scorch marks and soot, had been on fire some time in the last couple days. Clearing her throat, she began, “So… the thing is, the Elements of Harmony are not fictional, though I can see how you might come to that conclusion. Celestia brought them up in a lesson that I think was about using every tool available to you… or maybe the delegation of crisis response? It can be hard to tell sometimes what she’s really trying to teach, you know?”
“She–.” Sunset’s brain skipped a beat, since it was already so determined to act like a heart.
“Sunset?”
“She told YOU they were real and not ME?!” Sunset didn’t mean to say that aloud, but from the way Cadance leaned away from her, it was apparent she had – in a convincing imitation of the Royal Canterlot Voice. Time for damage control. “Ack! Uh– What I meant to say was, she… didn’t tell me, and I–”
“No, I get it. She probably didn’t think you were ready.”
Sunset was about to lash out with an ‘of course I am’ when she caught on to the slight twinge of disgruntlement in Cadance’s tone. “I… take it you’ve heard that one before, yourself, huh?”
Cadance bowed her head. “Not often, but she’d drop it on me every now and then when I’d ask about, well…”
She was getting cagey. How’s about a test of her vow of transparency? “Well, what?”
Cadance grimaced. “Well, for example… shortcuts I’d heard of to make governing a nation as big as ours a little easier…”
Sunset’s ears perked up. She might not have cared for statecraft, but a secret was a secret, and she wanted to know. So, she played dumb: “What do you mean by shortcuts?”
“You know, the tricks that aren’t illegal, and they get the job done, but they don’t really make you any friends and can have long-term repercussions. Like walking on the forbidden grass, if we want to talk about a literal shortcut. You and I have the authority to do so, but it wears an ugly rut” – a nearby mother reflexively covered her foal’s ears – “into the landscaping, if we make a habit of it.”
Cadance chose a particularly tame shortcut to describe, didn’t she? “In that case, I’ve seen Celestia take shortcuts all the time. And got scolded for taking them myself in my studies, I might add.” She put on a Celestia voice that didn’t sound anything like Celestia. “My most brilliant student, Sunset, you have to attend your studies at CSGU instead of spending all your time in the Royal Library. My most brilliant student, Sunset, you need to learn how to solve a puzzle without brute-forcing it through the judicious application of magical fire. My most brilliant student, Sunset, you can’t just start with the final book in the Chronicles of Narwhalnia to skip all the pointless filler I call character development and steady escalation of stakes.”
The Princess-in-training chuckled, then shrugged. “I’ve come to see it like this: you have to learn what the rules are and why they exist before you can understand when it’s time to slip around them. And she made, like, half of them, so she already knows the ‘what’ and ‘why’.”
Sunset harrumphed. She was starting to get talked into understanding some of her mentor’s glaring hypocrisies, and she couldn’t have that. “We’ve gotten off the subject. The Elements of Harmony are real?”
“That’s certainly what she implied when she brought them up. She mentioned them off-hoof, as part of a project she hoped to have ready in the next ten years. I tried asking for more details, like where they were, or with whom she was coordinating, or even just what they actually were, but…”
“Let me guess: you weren’t ready to know that yet?”
Cadance grinned and pulled Sunset close under her massive wing. “Hey! That’s exactly what she said! How’d you know?”
“Lucky guess.” She would have grinned if she wasn’t more focused on squirming out of the Princess’s grip, eventually prying herself free with a force-bubble. “So, we’re searching for the Elements, despite having no idea of anything about them.”
“Not quite. They won’t do us a whole lot of good if we don’t have anypony to use them.”
“You can, can’t you?”
Cadance grimaced. “Sure I could. Probably. But… well, if I understood her under the layers of subtext and allusion, wielding them all by herself allowed her to make some pretty big mistakes, completely unchecked.”
“Yeah, I can take a guess who she’s talking about there.”
Cadance dipped her head in solemn respect. It was kind of blatantly obvious to anypony who lived with Princess Celestia that she got just a teensy little bit more reserved whenever the subject of her sister came up. Sunset wasn’t really sure why: after that betrayal, smiting the Nightmare into the moon was self-defense.
Maybe it was something Sunset would have understood if she had siblings of her own, but she doubted it.
“So you don’t think you can handle them all by yourself,” Sunset gathered.
“I don’t want to risk it.”
“Bet I could. Simply don’t regret anything you do. Easy.”
Deep concern creased Cadance’s features. “Sunset… You and I both know–”
“If you bring up anything my journal said I’ll set this entire mountain on fire. Don’t try me.”
Several bystanders darted for the nearest door, alley, or bench to hide behind.
Cadance shook her head. “Then I won’t. I promise.” Or, rather, she had made her point clear enough. “Regardless, it’s a good thing Shiny wasn’t around to hear that. I don’t think he’d ever sleep again if we’d planted the idea in his head of you, alicornized, wielding the Elements of Harmony like a remorseless avatar of Royal wrath.”
A vision of Sunset’s billowing infernal mane in the mirror flitted through her memory. “He wouldn’t know beaut–” – Sunset suddenly remembered she was talking to one of the most objectively-attractive mares she’d ever met – “Er, magnificence, if it bit him on the flank.”
Ignoring the narrowly-avoided snub against her looks, Cadance just chuckled and moved on. “Thankfully, we’re not just giving all of the Elements to one alicorn and hoping she doesn’t go on a  power-trip.”
“Sure, sure. I getcha. You just don’t want whoever’s got them to overthrow you, so you split them between several ponies to ensure that their power can only be leveraged through cooperation.”
Giggling, Cadance countered, “Unless they all decide they don’t like me, but I’ll try not to let things get that bad.” With a smile, she nudged Sunset’s shoulder. “Are you sure you weren’t attending my Royal lessons in secret?
Sunset shook her head. “It’s just basic social dynamics. If you can’t help making a target of yourself, then you need to make sure nopony’s got it together enough to go after you.”
“Still, you might have a better head for the ugly side of politics than me,” Cadance reasserted. “I might have copied your notes if you’d joined us.”
“Believe me, Celestia wouldn’t have had me. The one time I expressed an interest in the finer points of ruling, she tried to drill a cartload of ethics lessons into my head. She wasn’t gonna teach me the good stuff until I’d read every sappy fantasy generously labeled a ‘utopian treatise’ that’s been penned in the last three millennia.” Sunset threw up a forehoof. “Who gives a scat who ponies in three-hundred and thirty-three B.A. thought should sit on their dumpy little thrones of rock and mud? They didn’t even have alicorns yet! It’s all irrelevant now!”
Cadance hummed, skeptically. “If I disappeared tomorrow–”
An eavesdropping stallion fainted at the idea.
 Hushing her voice with an awkward frown, she tried again. “If I disappeared tomorrow, leaving Equestria completely alicorn-free for at least the next two and a half years, I’d think it would be very useful to know how ponies tried to govern themselves before alicorns came along. They came up with the wheel back then, too, and you know what they say about reinventing that.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’m gonna invent a wheel that goes in four directions, just to spite whoever came up with that saying.” She just had to figure out how to suborn the right physics to her will, which she spent half her free time doing, anyways.
But they were really off-track. Again. And Sunset was sharing far too many insights into her person. This mare was dangerously easy to talk to.
Clearing her throat and putting on a serious face, Sunset said, “Anyways, before you can worry about coup d’etats from your Element-wielders, you need ponies to wield them in the first place, and I’m guessing Celestia already had some picked out.”
“Some candidates, at least.”
“But you don’t know who.”
Cadance smiled. “Not the slightest clue.” It was a pained smile.
“So instead of wasting time trying to find her notes (because you know as well as I do that she keeps as much of that stuff in her head as she can fit ), we’re recruiting our own ‘Bearers’ – with blackjack and Wonderbolts.”
With a chuckle, Cadance mused, “If Aunt Tia didn’t want us to gamble and associate with strange company, she should have left us, I don’t know, some directions, and a list of contacts. Anything at all, really.”
Sunset tilted her head away from her liege-to-be. “You’re really laying it on thick that you don’t know what you’re doing, you know.”
A sharp intake of breath. “I mean, I can’t honestly say I do…”
Passing under the balcony of a cafe, Sunset could swear she saw some moustached muzzle in a fancy suit turn to study them, like a wolf stalking prey.
Not good. “Look, confident or not, you gotta cut that scat out. Save your insecurities for your coltfriend. Nopony wants to see their Princess dragging her mopey little head on the floor like a depressed catoblepas.”
“…You’re right.”
The counterargument to whatever Sunset thought Cadance was going to rebuke her with derailed against her teeth. “Of course I am – but you’re seriously just gonna give me that?”
“Let’s just say you wouldn’t be the first to tell me I can be a bit too open with my emotions. I’ll… try to keep my guard up, but please don’t hesitate to let me know if I slip.”
“Wait, what? You want me to point it out? Because I will, but…”
But it wasn’t anything Celestia wanted to hear. Any apparent slip-up always seemed to be a calculated failure to further some hidden agenda, so saying something just revealed that agenda to exactly the ponies who weren’t supposed to figure that out. So she wanted Sunset to keep her big mouth shut.
Cadance ran her pinions through her mane with a subtle whimper. “It might hurt a little… But the history books are full of egotists who didn’t appreciate the value of an ally who doesn’t let friendship or reverence get in the way of legitimate critique. So many kings and queens have fallen because they filled their courts with yes-ponies who only told them what they wanted to hear.”
“So you want me to tell you when you’re being an idiot and poke holes in all your plans. That’s what I’m hearing.”
“Celestia taught me that any plan your average teenage filly can poke holes in is no plan at all.”
Sunset snorted, ignoring the slight long enough to play off of it. “Must be why she never shared them with me. I’m anything but average. –Also, I’m not even a teenager anymore.”
“Well, you’ll just have to do for now. Next year, the filly I’ve been foalsitting turns thirteen, and she can take your place.”
“Right…” Sunset kinda wanted to ask why on Equus Cadance was sitting foals (was it a hobby? an assignment from Celestia?), but there were more pressing matters to attend to. “So, back to our Bearers. Who have you chosen?”
“That’s the thing! I… haven’t.”
Sunset stopped in the middle of the street. Cadance took three strides with her towering alicorn legs behind before she turned back to see what was holding Sunset up.
Slack-jawed bafflement gripped the brilliant mage. It was already time to make good on Cadance’s request. “WHAT?! You haven’t?! You don’t even know who’s getting the weapons Celestia used to smite chaos itself with?!”, shouted Sunset. “What are you gonna do, just hoof them out to random ponies on the street?!“
On cue, several disheveled Canterlites, the mania and dread of these uncertain times still bloodshot in their eyes, stopped in their tracks and turned to face their Princess-to-be, if they hadn’t already been watching them. They smiled, and softened their eyes, and did their best to look respectable and responsible.
With a shake of her head and a sympathetic frown, Cadance dismissed their hopes of safety and security, and they went back to hanging their heads and looking over their shoulders.
“Sorry, everypony…” Annoyance briefly creased her brow, but with a sigh she seemed to acknowledge that this is what she signed up for. “Nothing so undiscerning as that, Sunset. I do have some standards.”
“And those would be?”
“I’m looking for a group of friends who’re all extremely gifted in their own ways – the best and the brightest – but not yet deep into their careers. Or, as Princess Celestia described you on many occasions, ‘full of potential’.”
It stung to hear that. Sunset didn’t know why.
Cadance resumed walking without her. “The quickest way I can think of to find ponies like that is to consult my old school.”
Sunset trotted along to catch up. “But, wait, in that case, CSGU’s on the other side of the city.”
“Then it’s a good thing I didn’t go to Auntie’s School.” She flared those majestic, storklike wings. “I was a pegasus before I got the horn, remember?”
Yes. Sunset remembered. Very clearly. It was only the pivotal event that informed her ascension was possible in the first place.
It happened only a year into Sunset’s apprenticeship. Sunset was forced to attend, which she did so begrudgingly, assuming it was going to be nothing more than a fancy ceremony. Pegasus goes in, pegasus comes out. The rows and rows of ponies Sunset didn’t recognize and assumed were friends of Cadance’s or assorted unimportant dignitaries did little to dispel that notion.
When Cadance disappeared in a flash of light and came back with a horn all of a sudden, part of Sunset refused to believe it was anything but an illusion. Still, before the ceremony had even concluded, Sunset ‘ported to the library to do some research. When Cadance showed up to Court the next week and that horn was still there (along with an insultingly-humble demeanor)… Well. Envy was a powerful motivator.
What Sunset had no recollection of was Cadance’s education before she was undergoing Princess Training full-time. She was already out of secondary school by the time Sunset entered the picture. Even if she did go to CSGU, Sunset wouldn’t have bumped into her.
“I assumed Celestia enrolled all her students at the school with her name on it.” Sinecorns studying at CSGU was not necessarily unheard of, though they, for obvious reasons, stuck to magical theory.
“Well, technically, I guess I did participate in the concurrent enrollment program, but that was just for a few classes afterschool. For most of my education, I went– Well, here!” With that, she stopped.
Sunset slowed, too, her neck craning back to take in the size of the building in front of her.
Before them was a foreboding fortress of rose-quartzen brick, trimmed in blue sapphire and golden topaz, its dozens of spires gleaming above the city in the sun’s empty stare.
Cadance realized, in that moment, she was about an hour behind schedule with the sun, and adjusted accordingly, refracting a thousand rainbows into a waltz across the public square in the school’s shadow.
The jewelmasonry was exquisite, but also deeply antiquated. This was a campus that remembered the Crystal Diaspora – probably built by their hooves and horns. The 1776 Annexation of the Bittish Isles into Equestria was still recent news to these old gems. Until very recently, there remained only one pony on Equus who remembered a time before it stood here.
Sunset had never noticed this place in her life. Now, she was unsure how she had not. It was blinding.
But she had heard of it. “So this is Princess Amore’s.” In full, Princess Amore’s Crystal Memorial Preparatory Academy, but Sunset would rather gargle sand than waste her vocal chords on all those words. “I lost count of how many pep-rallies I had to sneak away from while I was at CSGU, but most of them were against this place. Figures that you went to the place named for your family.”
“Doesn’t it? I’m told most of my ancestors did, too. Though, please, could you just call it Crystal Prep?”
“Why?”
“Because it’s super awkward to go to a school with your own name plastered on it?”, hinted PRincess Mi Amore Cadenza. “Especially when the word ‘Memorial’ is there, too?” She shuddered in the thrall of unwanted memories. “You would not believe how many jokes they made in my freshpony year about the ghost of Princess Amore haunting the campus, and they never completely stopped for the next five.”
“Well, at least you had your Nightmare Night costume figured out.”
Cadance acknowledged the joke with a chuckle that sounded more than a little bit forced and made for the front door, pushing it open with her hoof instead of her magic. “Coming?”
As they stepped into the entry foyer, the inside was no less bright, though it was harder to tell where the light was coming from, refracted through the countless jewels. Empty, too, but the lectures of stern, emotionless teachers echoing off the flourite tiles and nephrite walls confirmed school was still in session that day.
Sunset was pretty sure it was the only school open. The others were still tentatively closed, in case a state of national emergency were to be declared.
The glare of gold and grain of wood caught Sunset’s eye; it was the only other thing here which was not made of crystal or pony. All the bevelled walls were set with displays of accolades and history, protectively encased in what Sunset could only assume was clear diamond instead of glass, given all the other crystalwrought opulence.
On an impulse, she smacked the case with her hoof. Not even a scratch.
Sunset skimmed the collection of awards, unimpressed – and not just because she didn’t care about athletics. You could win all the medals you wanted, in every subject under the sun, but you’d never be as prestigious as the school that had the reigning Princess’s name stamped on it. Crystal Prep would always be second-best – nothing more than a backup plan for any unicorn who didn’t quite turn out to be worthy of the horn on her head.
Well, Canterlot’s sinecorns probably loved this place, but there had to be better schools for them in Cloudsdale or… Where did earth ponies go? All the way out to Manehattan?
In any case, there was nothing here truly worth celebrating – until her eye caught upon a golden trophy for a multidisciplinary competition between, as Sunset vaguely recalled, all the secondary schools in the city.
What commanded her attention about this one was that this was the sole winning trophy for the magic category of these Friendship Games. You know, a category which had no right to go to any school which was not Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns: the School Where you Go if You’re Good at Magic.
“What’s this doing here?”, Sunset spat.
Cadance hummed. “That is weird. Your school usually wins that one.” She shrugged. “Unfortunately, since I graduated in ‘91,” – Sunset looked at the year on the trophy. Spring of 1998. Two years ago. – “I couldn’t tell you why. Even the freshponies I knew back then have graduated by now.”
“Unless they got held back.”
Sunset was about to board a train of thought before Cadance returned fire with, “You don’t get held back here.” She was deadly serious, and Sunset, assuming a nerve had been struck, was about to drop the subject when Cadance explained, “They won’t let you. They’re… They’re very keen on good metrics here.”
“I see.” Sunset had questions about how they enforced that, but she had a train of thought to catch before it left the station in her mind – and some idea how, anyways. Even she, in her determination to stay out of interscholastic rivalries, had heard of Crystal Prep’s notoriously strict policies.
Sunset caught her mental ride in the nick of time. See, it occurred to Sunset that she was attending CSGU in 1998 – a phase of her life she was grateful was over with. That Mayre, Sunset was unjustly denied valedictorian and graduated as just another unicorn in the Class of ‘98, on the mere technicality that she had to actually do all the time-wasting busywork she was assigned if she wanted her grades to reflect her intelligence, despite such drudgery being beneath her.
Point is, Sunset was attending school at the time of this competition.
“Why didn’t anypony tell me I could have participated in a magic competition?!”
“They probably tried, at those pep-rallies you didn’t go to.”
Sunset ignored this. “I could have taken that trophy home all by myself, even with a bad case of horndroop.”
“From what Celestia’s told me about you, that wouldn’t surprise me.” Another sting, distracting Sunset from relishing her ego being stoked. “Thanks for stepping aside and handing us the win,” she teased.
“I can assure your Highness,” a cold, third voice chided, before Sunset could bite back at the tease, “that our team for the 1998 Friendship Games needed no charity from Celestia’s School to best the competition this year.”
A middle-aged cyan unicorn, spindly and tall enough she could just about see eye-to-eye with Cadance, with a close-curled mane as dark as a sea of wine, had somehow snuck up on them, despite wearing slip-on hoof-flats on a tile floor. They were black patent faux-leather: glossy enough to blind, and leatherlike enough to command fear and attention.
Sunset liked faux-leather, even if she tried not to think about what inspired its invention. The dress she always dreamed to wear on her coronation day would be all faux-leather. With studs and chains. Lots of studs and chains.
She was pulled out of her daydream by… nothing in particular. This mare just radiated command – which is a very different thing from power, although many Canterlite unicorns conflated the two. Command was the hold one had over other ponies, and it came naturally with power, but some ponies could summon it without any power of their own.
This one cultivated her looks for professionalism, intimidation, and status, like so many untitled Canterlite civil servants and chairponies, but her meager station contributed just as much to her command as her looks. How many underlings and coworkers had she stepped on to get where she was? All to achieve her life’s ambition of… administering the second-most-important secondary school in Canterlot. Not even a college!
But there was no real power, as best as Sunset could tell, behind her command. When this mare adjusted her armless glasses upon her snout, her lavender-gray corona came out thin and weak, and she certainly didn’t have any muscle to her. Sunset wasn’t scared of her at all.
Cadance, on the other hoof, went stiff as a board – until she remembered she was an alicorn (soon-to-be) Princess instead of a schoolfilly and pulled herself back together. Only a little, though. “Headmare Cinch! Please accept my earnest apologies! The implication of what I was saying hadn’t occurred to me.”
Cinch hummed in acknowledgement, without expressly accepting those apologies. “Do pardon my interruption,” she said, “if you were busy memorizing the names of those who will soon be the Star Swirls of our lifetimes.”
Sunset held in a snort. She wanted to say something about how that wasn’t impressive – how, in Star Swirl’s day, only a hoofful of ponies even knew how to teleport, and the average CSGU student knew more about magic in their freshpony year than Star Swirl had learned in his entire lifetime – but picking a fight with the pony they came here to speak to was a bad idea.
So, Sunset did as she suggested, and looked at the dozen names engraved upon the polished plaque. Only one stood out to her, because she happened to go by a nickname that Sunset had never liked for herself: ‘Sunny’. The palace staff had learned very quickly never to call Sunset ‘Sunny’.
Sunny Flare, though. What a terrible name to be saddled with as a unicorn. It was three quarters of the way to belonging to a pegasus, and the only thing that saved it was that it followed the ever-traditional ‘Sky Light’ template that haunted every unicorn foal whose parents hoped a name alone would be enough to grant them magical talent.
The headmare spoke up again. “If I may, Your Highness?” She didn’t wait for permission. “Though I know our meeting is scheduled for eight minutes from now, classes will be letting out in four, so I would suggest we return to my office” – Cadance frowned, just a little, at that last word – “before then, lest we interrupt the flow of education.”
Suppressing a gulp, Cadance replied, “Great idea!”
And so the three descended into the crystalline depths, nopony saying a word.
…
The Headmare let the Royal entourage into her strikingly-lit office right as classes let out for the next break. Most of the room was kept in shadow, save for the Headmare’s desk, the seats accompanying it, and the display cases for further trophies along the walls. All else lay in darkness – even that cathedralesque window behind Cinch’s chair was blinded with what glistened like (and hung with the weight of) galena carved into slats.
Why the Headmare thought she was important enough to need anti-magic window decor was a mystery for another time, though Sunset wondered how much of the rest of this office was lined with crystalline lead, too.
The door, on the other hoof, was hewn from tigers-eye carved to resemble a dark and professional varnished wood, as were many of the fixtures and furnitures of the office. For being yet more crystal, the chatoyant door swung easily on its hinges and muffled more than was expected. Those crystalwrights at least knew what they were doing.
Though, Sunset could still hear – through the thin, translucent panels of azurite and malachite that argyled the window on the door – an informative amount of clicking horseshoes, shuffling cloth, and not a whole lot of talking.
Back at CSGU, she couldn’t hear herself think for all the chatter and amicable hollering that filled the transit between classes. This was… eerily silent, by comparison. Peaceful, but eerie.
The dragging of stony feet across a wine-red, low-pile rug brought Sunset’s attention back to the task at hoof. Cadance had taken her seat in a chair.
A really uncomfortable-looking amethyst chair, with no padding, narrow hoofrests, and a back that shot so straight up that you couldn’t lean back at all.
It bore the scratches and chips of age and/or hard use, too. The profile was simpler, cruder, and much more modernist, so it couldn’t date back more than a century…
But it was probably old enough to have been uncomfortable when Cadance was a teenager, discussing (or more likely, sitting quietly as Princess Celestia and Headmare Cinch discussed) the scheduling conflicts that came with attending the strictest school in Canterlot and taking private lessons in Being A Princess.
And now, fully-grown by pegasus standards and almost a decade into her alicornic growth spurt, that chair had to be downright spine-breaking.
Though, watching Cadance try to take any semblance of comfort from the unloving stone jogged Sunset’s memory – she had absolutely seen that chair before. Or, at least, its kindred.
One day, Celestia came limping to one of Sunset’s magic lessons, with purple dust mostly but not completely scrubbed out of her coat. Hard to keep white fur totally spotless, Sunset supposed.
The day after, she commissioned a crystalwright to outfit the Sunless Dungeon with a batch of chairs that looked just like this one that Cadance sat in now.
As soon as they were all delivered, Celestia then had him imprisoned in the Sunless Dungeon, with only one such chair to sit on. It was just for a day, but after that day, said earth pony crystalwright allegedly put down his tools and took a pegasus lift to a monastery in the clouds above the southern Celestial Sea, retiring where even the ice melted too fast to carve.
Thing is, this particular chair… wasn’t the only chair set up in the office. There was a nice, plushly-upholstered bench-chair, sized to fit an alicorn, waiting for, Sunset supposed, her own haunches.
Nopony made Cadance take the awful chair. She sat down first. She chose it. Therefore, this belonged to Sunset.
Though, judging from the way she seemed to tense up and strain when she noticed Sunset trotting up to the bench, Cadance… might just not have noticed the one that was clearly meant for her until her flanks were already awkwardly wedged between its hoofrests, with no quick and subtle way to extract herself. Or maybe she was back in the headspace of a teenager and assumed Celestia would be there to take the one that she deserved.
Neither obliviousness nor regression boded well. Where had the Cadance of the previous night gone? Where was the alicornic grace?
Nopony seemed to want to say anything about the seating mismatch. Cinch did raise her brow, and Sunset was ready to give up her lounge if she was asked, but neither Cadance nor the old Headmare brought it up. Instead, Cinch placed her hooves on her desk, beside the polybasite nameplate that read |Headmare Abacus Cinch|, cleared her throat, and began the appointment.
“Would that we were meeting under more opportune circumstances, Your Highness. I hope you are handling the Princess’s disappearance with the perseverance and skill I know you to possess?”
“Indeed I am. Thank you.” Kinda shaky, but still in control. Being reminded of her station probably helped.
“I am quite appreciative, Your Highness, that even with the many responsibilities under which you must find yourself, and with as many connections to which the absent Princess has surely introduced you, you still turn to Princess Amore’s Crystal Memorial Preparatory Academy for guidance.” Headmare Cinch smiled.
“It’s my pleasure. –To count you among my closest assets.” Well that didn’t come out quite right, did it?
“And it is our point of pride to have you as our alumnus, Your Highness. The decision to grant your request was not simply a matter of deference to the Crown, but one of respect and gratitude.” Headmare Cinch propped the folder up in her hooves. “Per said request, I have selected a number of recent graduates, all of whom were close acquaintances during their years at Princess Amore’s Crystal Memorial Preparatory Academy, and have assembled a dossier on each for your perusal.”
Cadance sparked up her horn in preparation to receive the folder.
The folder remained in Headmare Cinch’s hooves. “There is just one matter.”
“And what is that?”
“Your request was unclear on what, precisely, you require these alumni for.” The Headmare’s smile faded, and Cadance seemed unable to keep a fearful twitch from pulling back her lips. “I should like to know to what my former students will be committing themselves, before I send you to their doors. Of particular emphasis in your letter was the national importance of their duty, but with matters of the Solar Crown, all matters are important, wouldn’t you agree?”
They were truly not. Sitting in on one session of Day Court, even when Celestia presided, could’ve taught Cinch that much. Nevertheless, “I see what you mean,” said Cadance. “Allow me to rephrase…”
She proceeded to dwell on her words for several seconds too long, from which Cinch could plausibly conclude that Cadance had not actually prepared for this. Which, given how busy she was with learning to roll the sun across the sky, she probably genuinely hadn’t. Still, it wouldn’t help their case.
It was kinda extremely frustrating. Here sat Sunset, quietly and politely allowing Cadance – tired, frustrated, cramped in an uncomfortable chair, and apparently scared witless of this pathetic old nag – to stumble and falter at what seemed like every possible step.
Honestly, Sunset couldn’t believe she was so intimidated by Cadance earlier that morning. As mortifying as it was that Cadance had unwittingly read her private correspondence, that didn’t hold a candle to the second-hand embarrassment of watching the sovereign she’d thrown in with fumble her way through dealing with a common civil servant.
But Sunset wasn’t in the mood for a scolding, so she just watched and made sure her screams stayed internal.
The Princess finally got her scat together enough to declare, “I am… recruiting a team of retainers, in the service of Equestrian national security, to bear a set of six empowering artifacts whose strength is dependent on the strength of the bonds between their bearers. It is a project that Princess Celestia started and which I intend to finish.”
Was somepony else going to find out the Elements of Harmony were a real thing that existed?
Now it was Headmare Cinch’s turn to say, “I see.” Then she frowned. “In that case, Your Highness, I do apologize, but I simply cannot grant your request.”
Cadance just blinked, speechless.
…She didn’t have a plan for if her Headmare refused her, did she?
Headmare Cinch took her silence as a prompt to continue. “Had I known these details sooner, I would have been able to reject your request without troubling you to arrange an appointment in your no-doubt busy schedule. I simply do not have any alumni matching your criteria. Beyond the fact that I would not be able to authoritatively assess any of these students to be closer than steady acquaintances, I was only able to procure a set of five. I do, again, apologize.”
Cadance, utterly demoralized, tried to shrink into a chair which creaked and groaned and tried to shrink into her. Gulping, she squeaked, “No, no, it’s fine. I understand.” She leaned back like she expected Cinch to lunge at her. “I–”
With a sudden, sharp crack, the wretched amethyst chair gave out under her weight, in a shower of jagged shards and splintered legs and violet dust that couldn’t be good for the lungs, sending the Princess sprawling to the floor. After a minute of stunned silence, she gingerly stood up and stared at her former headmare with eyes that limply gaped like her soul had been dragged, kicking and screaming, through the pinpricks of her pupils.
Blinking, she collected herself, bowed her head towards her Headmare, and made for the door like a Wonderbolt on fire.
Welp.
That was Sunset’s cue to say, “Excuse us for one moment,” and trot after her liege.
Fortunately, she caught up before Cadance could hide herself in the mares’ room down the hall. Any later and they’d be having this conversation from opposite sides of a stall door.
“Hey!” Sunset tried not to smirk. It would have been fun to rub it in while the wound was fresh, but they were on a time limit. “How long was your appointment scheduled for?”
Cadance, redder than usual, sheepishly answered, “Until 10:30.”
“Okay, I still got plenty of time. Go preen up and meet me back at the cafe. You look like you’re ready for more coffee.”
“Is it that obvious? I suppose haven’t slept in a few days…” She blinked. Several times, her eyelids sliding out of unison. “Wait, Sunset, what do you mean? What are you going to–”
“Don’t worry about it, Your Highness,” teased Sunset, casting back a cocky smile without a care for how it was received. She slipped back through the office door before Cadance could say another word.
Cinch addressed the lone unicorn immediately. “I beg your pardon,” she begged, to a Sunset reseating herself on the delightfully-cushy bench, “but I was under the impression our appointment had concluded. I do have work of my own to attend, which I had set aside to allow for our meeting in the first place.”
“Actually, Her Royal Highness had an idea she hopes will prevent this morning from being a waste of anypony’s time,” Sunset lied.
“Can Her Highness not tell me herself, Ms. …?”
“Sunset Shimmer, Royal Student and assistant to the Acting Princess.” Sunset debated listing her future Princesshood as a qualification, but she didn’t get the feeling Cinch would believe her. “Pleased to meet you,” she also lied, and further chicaned, “The Princess was summoned back to the Palace to attend to urgent matters regarding her coronation.”
“That is unfortunate. I must insist, however, on concluding our appointment where it had, given I now must arrange for janitorial cleanup and the requisition of a replacement chair from storage.”
“I don’t need to stay in your mane for long, Headmare Cinch,” Sunset insisted, going as far as to casually levitate bits of chair into the Headmare’s wastebasket, “but the opportunity is time-sensitive. You won’t need to hunt for anypony else, either, as it would be right up your picks’ alley.”
Cinch took a steadying breath through her nose. “I suppose I am listening, if that is what it takes to send you on your way.”
Sunset clapped her hooves together. “Great!” It was a shame Cadance couldn’t be there to watch how a master manipulates her marks.
She started by spinning an appealing lie, from tidbits she’d gathered over the last few days. It was like taking the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and putting them together ever-so-subtly wrong, just so she could hide the last piece in her hoof. “You see, like I said, Princess Cadance is preparing to officially coronate herself, which she intends to do as quickly as possible. Thing is, the usual event staff are busy with all the other changes going on in the palace.”
This was a massive exaggeration. It was true that many of the staff typically retained for public events were quite busy volunteering their skills elsewhere in the Palace… but that was on account of there being very suddenly zero scheduled public events.
But this was the part where it was probably a good thing Cadance wasn’t there, after all. She wouldn’t be able to undermine Sunset with the truth. “We happen to need about five multitalented ponies to manage the preparations for the event,” Sunset concluded. She could figure out what to do with the existing event staff later. Or, better yet, Cadance could.
Cinch hummed, then presumed, “So, I am to gather you would recruit your supervisors from my dossier?” No new mention of Sunset’s ejection from this office. Somepony was interested.
“That’s correct; you don’t even have to spare another minute of research. I can’t imagine anypony would say no. It’s an opportunity to get valuable experience and a hoof in the door working for the Crown, to make connections with ponies in close proximity to the highest levels of the Equestrian government and high society, and, most of all,” – and here the juiciest bait was put on the hook – “there’s the prestige.”
You could learn a lot about a pony by what they let their environment say for them.
“The prestige.” Cinch masked the curiosity in her tone, but the way she leaned forward in her swivel chair was as unmistakable as the click of its wheels. She was hooked.
“Yes! A coronation doesn’t exactly happen very often within our lifetimes. The ponies that made this once-in-many-lifetimes occasion possible” – and here Sunset was happy she didn’t mention her own royal ambitions – “would be instantly renowned. And…”
“And?” The frown was completely gone, and Cinch might well have been fighting a smile.
“And if it came out that, say, they all happened to have been alumni of the same institution – one which the new Princess regnant herself, whose ancestor lent it her name, also attended – then it only stands to reason that the prestige achieved by those alumni would be shared with that aforementioned institution.”
It would have been subtle to leave it at that, but when a pony’s heart’s desire gets dangled above her lap, that pony is bound to get stupid. Subtlety is wasted on stupid ponies. Lay it on thick. 
“Just imagine all of Canterlot’s unicorn parents, raising brilliant young mages like” – Sunset dropped the only name off that trophy she bothered to remember – “Sunny Flare, and deciding they would rather put them through the rigors of Princess Amore’s Crystal Memorial Preparatory Academy, to ensure as many doors are open for their foal as possible, instead of sending them to Celestia’s antiquated, hyper-specialized School.”
Sunset would feel awful about backstabbing her school if only she cared about the school at all. CSGU was nothing more than the filler Celestia put her through between actual lessons.
“I see. I see…” Oh, Sunset just about had her. “You make a very tempting offer, Ms. Shimmer. ”
That wasn’t a yes. There was something more here. “I’d be happy to answer any questions or concerns you might have,” she ventured. Let the sucker think she’s still in control.
“As a matter of fact, there is one.” Cinch cast her eyes down at the dossier and lowered her ears. The motion was too practiced; the vulnerability, artificial. But there was something unfamiliar to Sunset in the way she regarded that folder, just for a second. “Before I can provide any information, I must have your assurance that the Crown will take all steps necessary to protect our alumni, and, by extension, our Academy, from any harm to reputation or body.”
That last word was very interesting. Not wanting to lose face if the coronation turned into a flop was to be expected. Headmare Cinch, however, apparently also had an interest in protecting her former students’ well-being, which was less mercenary than Sunset anticipated from Cinch’s type. That might explain her opposition to the plan as Cadance laid it out, not wanting to bear any remote responsibility for these Bearers getting injured in the line of duty. Better than the thin excuses she gave, at least.
“You have my word, Headmare. Rest assured that all occupational safety and contractor confidentiality laws will be followed to the letter. If it keeps ponies safe, we’ll add new letters to those laws.”
Cinch smiled, with a hint of trepidation that she did not allow into her voice. “Well, Ms. Shimmer, I would be more than willing to lend Her Highness any resources Princess Amore’ Crystal Memorial Preparatory Academy has to offer towards filling those positions. Here,” she instructed, and levitated the folder into Sunset’s much-brighter aura of aquamarine. “If anypony in that folder should refuse – though I sincerely doubt even one of them would so much as consider it – I can recommend numerous other potential candidates.”
“Good to know. We appreciate it, Headmare Cinch.” Sunset got out of her seat and gave a little bow, before glancing at the tigers-eye grandfather clock in the corner. “Looks like we’ve still finished our appointment five minutes ahead of schedule. If there’s nothing else, I’ll be going now; you have a nice day.”
“You as well, Ms. Shimmer.”
And with that, Sunset was out of that rube’s office and on the hunt for a Princess.